A few weeks ago, Ashley wrote about electronic waste and how I had collected a box of cords and “crap” that we no longer need.  I think she took a few things out of the box to bring to good will, but I just recently took the rest to Best Buy.  I am here to report that it is very easy and there is no reason that you cannot bring in your electronic waste for recycling.

Probably, the most difficult thing for me was actually getting to Best Buy.  Although I like buying gadgets and whatnot, I am not the biggest consumer in the world.  Basically, I drove around for a while with my box of recyclable whatnots in the back in my car.

This post is going to be a short post and the reason is that recycling electronics was so easy.  All there was to it is walking into the Best Buy, they tagged my box of recycling and I brought to the customer service desk.  It was honestly a five minute process and I was out of there.

If time or hassle is your obstacle to donating electronics, please don’t let it hold you back.  It is easy and fairly hassle free.  PLUS, you help save the world!

I purchased my first coconut this past week.   After the smashing this poor coconut had to endure from my hammer, I started to wonder what happened to all of the coconut shells the commercial coconut companies would use.  I would think that the coconut waste can be used for hardwood floors in the same way that cork or bamboo is used.   Or maybe it can even be used as artwork or cabinetry.  I am about to find out what types of products are out there made out of Coconut shells.

1.  Wikipedia states that shells can be used for fuel and are a good source of charcoal. Shirt buttons can also be crafted from the shells of coconut.  Musical instruments can also be made from coconut shells.

2.  Wikipedia also stated that the trunk can be used to make hardwoods.  Palmwood comes from the trunk, and is increasingly being used as an ecologically-sound substitute for endangered hardwoods.  It can also be used in furniture and construction.

3.  Coir-which is the fiber taken from the coconut husk is used in many applications; from the manufacture of car seats, it can be used as mulch and an environmentally friendly alternative to peat.

4.  The hard part of the shell can be made into bowls, spoons, ladles, hookah pipes, salad servers and rubber latex collecting cups. They are also carved to make decorative objects such as picture frames.

5.  There are several ways to make artwork from coconuts.  Hand painted scenes from Hawaii, Coconut Sculptures, Earrings and all of these things are good examples of a very crafty artist.

This guy is very creative by using the husk fibers to make a very environmentally friendly netting that anchors the soil on sloping land as well as river banks, protecting against erosion.  This is doubly green by reusing something that would otherwise be waste, and turning it into something good for the environment.  It may be a creative home for this fella.  It can be turned in to ethanol.  Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to find any information about what companies, who prepared coconut for sale, do with their coconut waste.  If you have any resources or insight on what they do with this, please let us know in the comment section below.

Well, I have had an interesting week trying to creatively recycle and I have found a change I can make this week to reduce my impact on the environment.  Instead of throwing away our egg cartons, I am going to keep what we use or donate them to individuals who can use them.  This week’s green challenge to find a creative item to recycle has been accomplished.

Our garbage ends up on the curb only about once a month, so very little actually is thrown away at our house.  One of the items that has ended up in the garbage is our egg cartons, but no more.  We are going to use egg cartons to grow seedlings and I am going to donate any extra egg cartons to a local co-op that sells farm fresh eggs.  We may actually start buying these same eggs, but we just have not taken that step yet.

I may not have changed enough this week to save the world, but I made a small change this week that will help reduce our impact on the environment.  That is all I can do, right?  On to next week’s challenge!  Check back later today in order to see what next week’s challenge is.

Oh!  And if you have not seen it yet, register to win a NatureMill contest.

I know it is a commercial, but I thought it was an interesting watch.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVjEF1k6E50

We use too many egg cartons and we cannot recycle them in the traditional method.  This week, I am going to change our behavior in regards to egg cartons.  My challenge for the week is to find a product we do not currently recycle and find a way to recycle it.  Egg cartons meet the description.  I can think of a few things I can do with our egg cartons.  They are as follows:

1. Seedlings for the garden.  One of our readers mentioned this and it sparked the thought that gardening season is coming.  Some plants, particularly tomatoes, can be started early and an empty egg carton is a great place to start.
2. Donate them to a local food group – I just recently joined a food group in the Fargo area where some chatter takes place on Facebook (Ancient Roots).  They indicated that they can always use egg cartons, so I will save them for now on.  As a side note, tonight we are eating the Amish chicken I bought from them not so long ago.   YUMMY.
3. Stop Using Them! – No, we are not going to stop using eggs, but I wonder if I just can get eggs from a farmer and use our own carton.  I asked my group if they provide eggs and am waiting for an answer.  Also, I think that our local health food story, Tochi, might sell farm fresh eggs.  I will check it out.  The best kind of recycling stops consumption!

If you have any other practical uses for the egg cartons, please let me know in the comment area below.

My eco friend over at www.ecogeeco.com contacted me yesterday to educate me on the task I am trying to complete this week.  For those just joining me, I am assigned a weekly green challenge and it is my job to learn about, and act on, that task.  This week, I am supposed to find a new item to recycle or a way to creatively recycle.  Ecogeeco made my job this week a little easier.

Ecogeeco indicated to me that my task was describing upcycling.  To upcycle is basically creative recycling.   In my green journey, I have seen this word, but did not look very far into it and was not 100One of the items I previously mentioned that I could recycle is egg cartons.  A helpful commenter gave me numerous tips… one of which I may use.  Raising Seedlings in egg cartons is a great idea.  Gardening season is approaching (well, a few months away) and I suppose tomatoes can be planted fairly soon.

Also, he sent me a few links that will help me find the kind of information I am looking for.  First, Terracycle is a company that you can send garbage to and they make new items from the garbage.  They even pay you!  Crazy, I know.  Then, he mentioned www.instructables.com and www.makezine.com.  Both of these sites show different and fun ways for us to reuse items and various Do It Yourself projects.  Makezine surely caught my attention with the fire breathing snowman.

Thanks Ecogeeco for providing this information and the various links.  These are some very cool sites (like yours is) and I am getting some ideas on how to recycle in a more creative manner.

This week’s green challenge is to find something new to recycle.  Fortunately, we really do not send that much out in the trash anymore, so I am not quite sure where to go and thought I might try and ask my readers for any suggestions.  I am going to list some of the garbage items we throw away and am looking for any advice you may have.

Bones – Generally, these are chicken bones, as we do not eat that much meat.  Also, we compost quite a bit of our food waste, but we are not supposed to put bones in our NatureMill composter.  Any ideas you could provide on how to recycle this would be appreciated.  I live right across the street from a river… I wonder if it would be environmentally friendly to toss them in the river.

Egg Cartons – We get our egg cartons from the store and I do not believe that these are recyclable in our area.  I wonder if there is a way that I can use these or if someone else can use these.

Certain Containers- We use some containers that we just cannot recycle and cannot find a good use for.  Most of these are raisin packages and frozen yogurt containers.

Plastic Milk Containers – What to do with these suckers?  We keep our green tea containers for certain things, but is there any use for the gallon milk jugs that you can think of?

My week long hiatus from our green tasks are over and now it is back to the fun!  We now have been at this over four months and am excited at all the changes we have made in this time, but I think it is time to get back to some basics.  Ashley wants me to find some of the things that we currently throw away and find ways to recycle these items.  This is my challenge for the week.

Since our garbage has gone down quite dramatically, this might be a difficult one to follow through on.  We used to send our garbage out on a weekly basis, but now it is about every 3 – 4 weeks that we put garbage on the curb.  This makes our selections of items to choose from relatively small in comparison to what we used to throw away.

So, please join me this week in figuring out some new things to recycle and ways to creatively recycle some of the items that currently go into the waste basket.  If you have any interesting ways that you recycle, I would love to read about them in the comment area below.